Thursday, August 27, 2009

Laws of Karma and Samsara

The Intricacies of Karma and Samsara

Krishna tells Arjuna in the Gita that all activities (kriya) “both auspicious and inauspicious” create impressions (karma) and leads to bondage (samsara). So “good” acts that leave “good” impressions (karma) or “bad” acts that result in “bad” impressions (also karma) are all impressions (you guessed it - karma) and therefore bind one to samsara.

Samsara is the “Wheel of Life” or the cycle of birth and death. We must be free of residual karma, good or bad, in order to achieve pure spiritual enlightenment and enter the pure spiritual realm unsullied by material impressions (karma). In order to expend such impressions we must take on a material body for it is only in a material body we can expend our material impressions. However, there is problem, well actually two problems.

The Karma-deha and the Bhoga-deha.

The Bhoga-deha is a material body that can only expend karma. The soul in a Bhoga-deha body enjoys or suffers the consequences of previous acts, i.e. expends karma. The Krishna tells Arjuna in the Gita that all activities (kriya) "both auspicious and inauspicious" create impressions (karma) and lead to bondage (samsara). So "good" acts that leave "good" impressions (karma) or "bad" acts that result in "bad" impressions (also karma) are all impressions (you guessed it - karma) and therefore bind one to samsara.

Samsara is the "Wheel of Life" or the cycle of birth and death. We must be free of residual karma, good or bad, in order to achieve pure spiritual enlightenment and enter the pure spiritual realm unsullied by material impressions (karma). In order to expend such impressions we must take on a material body for it is only in a material body we can expend our material impressions. However, there is problem, well, actually two problems.

The Karma-deha and the Bhoga-deha.

The Bhoga-deha is a material body that can only expend karma. The soul in a Bhoga-deha body enjoys or suffers the consequences of previous acts, i.e. expends karma. The Bhoga-deha is a non-human body; a plant, animal, insect etc. This body is solely meant for burning off karma, one cannot create karma in a Bhoga-deha body. An animal, being under the complete control of Mother Nature (Prakriti) and her influences and energy, cannot create karma. This is actually desirable from the point of view of expending karma and getting rid of impressions. If we remain in an animal body, expending Karma, then we can rid ourselves of vast amounts of residual material impressions. One cannot continue to break the law if one is in jail and one will eventually "pay their debt" to society when the sentence ends.

The Karma-deha is the human body. It is in the human body that we can, and do, create karma. It is in the human body that we are held responsible for our actions due to the fact that we can exercise choice based on developed intelligence. The problem is that if we are not careful we can begin to create more karma (both good and bad) and must be reborn in some body or other to expend that karma. It is the person who is NOT in prison that has the freedom, indeed the opportunity, to break the law. It's a catch-22 really, the only way to break the cycle of material existence is through the human form, the karma-deha, but it is in the human form that we are most likely to create karma thus throwing us back into a bhoga-deha body and keeping us bound in Samsara.

Despair not; there is reason for and a solution to this karmic conundrum.

The Freedom of Choice

Question: Would we rather be free with the freedom, choice and risk of breaking the law or be imprisoned without the freedom, choice and risk of breaking the law. I know, dumb question.

The reason we must be in the human form to break the cycle of samsara is that we must choose to do so.

It is only in the human form, the karma-deha, that we have the freedom of choice. The pursuit of spiritual enlightenment, God realization, Brahman realization, call it what you like, must be an intentional choice. God would rather we choose to have a deep, spiritual relationship with him, just as we would rather be with someone who freely chooses, and is not coerced by outside persons or circumstances, to be with us.

Love can only exist and grow when both persons freely choose to be in the relationship, not when there is force. In the end of the Gita, after hours of explaining all the different spiritual paths and philosophies, Krishna tells Arjuna to "do what you wish to do".

Krishna, spirituality, the Gita, is not about force - hence the freedom of the human being to choose whether or not to create its own karma.

So the key is not to eliminate "bad" karma and acquire "good" karma because ALL karma leads to samsara.